Armstrong v. Ashley

918 F.3d 419
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMarch 11, 2019
DocketNo. 18-30126
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 918 F.3d 419 (Armstrong v. Ashley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Armstrong v. Ashley, 918 F.3d 419 (5th Cir. 2019).

Opinion

KURT D. ENGELHARDT, Circuit Judge:

Glenn Ford was wrongly convicted of murder and spent 30 years in solitary confinement on death row before being fully exonerated, with all charges dropped. Ford sued the Defendants-Appellants1 (as well as other defendants not included in this appeal), all of whom were law enforcement officials at the time of Ford's wrongful conviction, alleging suppression of evidence, fabrication of witness statements, withholding of exculpatory evidence, and other violations.

Ford filed suit in March 2015. The operative First Amended Complaint was filed on September 8, 2015. Appellants answered the complaint on December 3, 2015, while other defendants in the initial lawsuit chose to instead move to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b). Approximately three months later, on March 16, 2016, the Appellants filed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the case for failure to state a claim. Alternatively, they moved for the Appellee to add details to the allegations pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 7(a).

The district court denied the Rule 12(b)(6) motion for being untimely on December 28, 2017.2 The court also denied the alternative relief under Rule 7(a). The Appellants appealed the dismissal of the Rule 12(b)(6) motion on January 23, 2018.

I.

The first, and determinative, issue is that of appellate jurisdiction. The case comes before this court on interlocutory appeal. In deference to the district court and to district judges' responsibility *422to manage trials, interlocutory appeals are only allowed in limited circumstances because they disrupt the progress of a trial. Johnson v. Jones , 515 U.S. 304, 309, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995). Therefore, "interlocutory appeals-appeals before the end of district court proceedings-are the exception, not the rule." Id.

"[A] decision ... is appealable if it falls within 'that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the cause itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.' " Mitchell v. Forsyth , 472 U.S. 511, 524-25, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) (quoting Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp. , 337 U.S. 541, 546, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949) ). Accordingly, Mitchell held that "a district court's denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law , is an appealable 'final decision' within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment." Id . at 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806 (emphasis added). For a decision to be considered final, and therefore appealable, it must fulfill three conditions laid out in Mitchell . Id. at 527, 105 S.Ct. 2806. First, it must be "effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment." Id. Second, it must "conclusively determine the disputed question." Id. (citation omitted). Finally, the question at issue must be a "clai[m] of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action." Id. (alteration in original) (citation omitted). The appellate court does not have jurisdiction to evaluate factual disputes. Winfrey v. Pikett , 872 F.3d 640, 643-44 (5th Cir. 2017).

A decision on qualified immunity can be an appealable final decision, "but only to the extent that the appeal concerns the purely legal question whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity on the facts[.]" Kinney v. Weaver , 367 F.3d 337, 347 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc). Typically, this determination is a decision on "whether the federal right allegedly infringed was clearly established." Behrens v. Pelletier , 516 U.S. 299, 313, 116 S.Ct. 834, 133 L.Ed.2d 773 (1996) (internal quotation omitted). If the district court declined to rule on qualified immunity when it was so obligated, that may also be considered an appealable final decision. See Helton v. Clements,

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Wertenbroch v. Hardeman
Fifth Circuit, 2026
Jew v. Dobbins
Fifth Circuit, 2025
Taylor v. Preciado
N.D. Mississippi, 2025
Savage v. Westcott
Fifth Circuit, 2025
Frosch v. Alsobrook
Fifth Circuit, 2025
Morales v. Ladner
Fifth Circuit, 2025
Stevenson v. Toce
113 F.4th 494 (Fifth Circuit, 2024)
Savoy v. Stroughter
Fifth Circuit, 2024
Clark v. Wallace
E.D. Louisiana, 2024
Brown v. Quian
Fifth Circuit, 2023
Autin v. Goings
Fifth Circuit, 2023
Wallace v. Taylor
Fifth Circuit, 2023
Armstrong v. Ashley
60 F.4th 262 (Fifth Circuit, 2023)
Macias v. Salazar
Fifth Circuit, 2022
Bevill v. Fletcher
26 F.4th 270 (Fifth Circuit, 2022)
Grant v. LeBlanc
Fifth Circuit, 2022
Singleton v. Cannizzaro
E.D. Louisiana, 2019

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
918 F.3d 419, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/armstrong-v-ashley-ca5-2019.